Russia’s airlines enjoy 11.7 per cent traffic growth in March

Ural Airlines experienced the highest growth performance among the top Russian carriers in March (Ural Airlines)

Russia’s airlines collectively saw their traffic increase year-on-year by an 11.7 per cent in March of this year. Combined figures rose to 7.8 million passengers, the nation’s Federal Air Transport Agency reports.

The latest official growth rate slightly exceeds that registered in February (10.9 per cent), which means that, in the first quarter of this year, the collective traffic grew by 12.3 per cent, reaching a figure of 22.1 million passengers.

Of the top-five Russian carriers, four increased their traffic in the period, with Ural Airlines demonstrating the highest growth rate of 30.4 per cent, having carried 609,100 passengers, and S7 Airlines’ passenger traffic grew by 20.3 per cent to 805,400. Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot served the largest number of passengers – 2.6 million – up 6.35 per cent on the same period last year, whilst UTair Airlines carried 556,500 passengers (plus 5.8 per cent year-on-year).

Rossiya Airlines was the only one among the top five to suffer a negative trend in February (down 6.7 per cent), although in 2017 its growth rate was highest, at 37.7per cent. In that period it served 11.2 million passengers, and rose to second from third in the rankings. However, in early 2018, S7 Airlines surpassed its competitor thereby regaining its higher league status.

For the entire 2017 year, Aeroflot served 32.8 million passengers (+13.3 per cent), S7 Airlines carried almost 10 million passengers (+4.9 per cent), followed by Ural Airlines and UTair’s eight million (+23.7 per cent) and 7.3 million passengers (+9.6 per cent), respectively.

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